Attempted Regicide
Emperor Maximilian aboard the Sheridan cruiser the 'Agamemnon', his personal cruse ship. During a trip to the loyal system of Fracture the Agamemnon is caught by Rebel FTL jammers during transit through a nearby nebulae, The 'concrete cloud' named by scientists excavating endless concrete ruins, a Rebel corvette of unknown name hit the Agamemnon with a EM pulse and the ship went dark, requiring 30 minutes to restart the ships systems but fortunately the ship was equipped with secondary and auxiliary life-support systems, the Agamemnon's design was meant for the cruiser to be serviced via shuttles and to be resistant to enemy energy weapons on the armored sections of the hull, preventing the Rebel corvette from simply blasting the ship at range, without room for docking Rebel marines land on the cruiser and physically cut their way in with plasma cutters, making sure to enter sections of the ship not usually occupied by the crew. Emperor Maximilian was rushed to his quarters and placed under guard of 6 Sheredyn guards, each a decorated officer, and was even handed a sidearm in case the worst should occur. The ensuring conflict sees Sheradyn elites going toe to toe with Rebel Spec op forces, each side armed with heavy power armor and equipped with powerful kinetic assault weapons, requiring direct hits to successfully kill each other in a single shot, in the dark. Traditionally Sheredyn troopers are equipped with a standard assault weapon for long range and the use of a custom built combat sword for close combat defense, a weapon famed for its teeth, able to rend flesh at an impeccable speed when used by a well trained soldier. Rebel Spec op officers can be found with a multitude of armaments and weapons, but in this case the officers were using Hissho Katina's, famed for their impossible sharpness and ability to even pierce tank armor, Hissho sword holders had to have a certified magnetic coil, to prevent soldiers from killing themselves. The conflict over the bridge was the bloodiest part of the conflict, with neither side willing to use their main weapons for the risk of hitting a major system that could cause the ships engine to overload, the battle lasted for over 2 hours with sword duels being a common sight, the Sheredyn captain of the vessel singled out the rebel commander for a head to head battle, lasting only 3 seconds when the rebel commander was decapitated by the captains claymore, a rare sight on board space faring vessels, but to the captain it was a gift from the emperor and so, glorifying it with the blood of the rebel commander was a symbol of the empires undying strength that boosted the Sheredyn moral enough to start turning the tide of the battle. The resulting battle ends with Sheredyn losses totaling with 80% of the crew before the Agamemnon's engines could be restarted, allowing them to track the locations of the intruders. Rebel marines had 97% casualties when attempting to breach the emperors private quarters 5 minutes later, only 6 rebel marines made it back to their corvette. When retreating from the battle the rebel corvette was targeted and hit by the Agamemnon's main energy weapon, stolen from a Sophon destroyer. However, the weapon was not installed correctly, resulting in a reactor shield breach on board the rebels corvette that within minutes killed the rest of the crew via radiation poisoning. Leaving their ship in a state that they had intended to leave the Agamemnon. The analysis of the rebel corvette suggested that the rebels had been planning this attack for over 3 years, and were only unsuccessful down to the fanatical nature of Emperor Maximilian's Sheredyn guard. Result Victory for the Empire. Commission of a tougher and better equipped capital ship for the emperor, as well as the introduction of a Sheredyn command structure. This allowed the Sheredyn to fully command their own fleets instead of being shoehorned into existing Empire fleets. Thanks to Igncom1 for the story